About Antony Reeve-Crook

Antony is the director of Arcimedia Ltd, a company dedicated to connecting global trade show organisers with the cities that will enable their events to flourish, and shining light on the industries that these cities and countries seek to foster.

“Disruption is a term that has been overused in the last 10 years. A lot of people talk about digital disruption, but to me the term often leads to people scratching their heads,” Eddie Choi told the audience at the UFI European Conference in Verona. Many of us will be in agreement. The subject is a staple of plenary halls at business conferences and while we all appreciate the opportunities that accompany destabilising the status quo, the only experience most of us will have of being truly disr [...]

'A view of Sao Paolo including exhibition venue Expo Center Norte' Provided you haven’t been running the country in the past 10 years, things are looking increasingly positive for the people of Brazil. On Tuesday, the president of the Central Bank of Brazil Ilan Goldfajn, said the country’s economy could expand beyond the otherwise “well-calibrated” 2.6 per cent forecasted for 2018. Speaking at an event in São Paulo, Goldfajn said that the nation’s recovery from the deepest recession in decade [...]

It won’t surprise anyone to say that when UFI and Explori teamed up to analyse the email survey responses from exhibitors at 1,040 trade shows, asking how they would improve their event experience, the majority asked for more people to attend their stand, followed by an increase in overall visitor numbers. Exhibitors pay good money to be at the biggest events. What might surprise you however, is the fact that venue shortcomings (quality of food outlets, parking and ease of build-up/break down) a [...]

In the world of professional conference organisers, much is made of the importance of brand ambassadors in generating interest – and ultimately attendance – in an event. But while in that world the ambassador is typically an eminent professor in the field in which the event takes place, our brand ambassadors are the paying customers; the exhibitors setting out their stalls on the show floor. It stands to reason then that event directors can use them to great effect in building the reputation of, [...]

Global exhibition industry figureheads have come together to form an investment and strategic advisory council to help entrepreneurs and fledgling businesses in the exhibition industry. The Events Investment Club (working title) is the brainchild of former Reed Exhibitions chairman Mike Rusbridge and former Reed Exhibitions’ commercial director Nick Forster, who have pooled resources with a dozen leading lights from the international exhibition industry. The group, which held its first official [...]

If UFI’s Global Barometer is anything to go by, then the new year resolutions of many exhibition industry companies will revolve around the digitalisation of their businesses. Driven change Globally, 55 per cent of the companies UFI surveyed said they have already changed internal processes and workflows to be more digital, with the UK, Germany, the US and China most active in this respect, while a quarter of companies reported that they have developed a digital transformation strategy for the w [...]

For anyone who missed UFI's World Map of Exhibition Venues last month, the total amount of exhibition space available around the world grew 7.7% over the last six years, giving organisers more choice in all markets except Central and South America, where venue closure has led to contraction. But while this overall growth does not explicitly refer only to bricks on the ground where none previously existed, it seems to me that we must not fixate only on new venue development. While there are 14 mo [...]

As we wind down for another year, I found myself reflecting on the key development that for me will come to define the exhibition industry in 2017. In the private sector we have seen some major development, perhaps led by the entry of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm with funds of more than US$368bn under management, into the exhibitions industry. Blackstone bought UK organiser Clarion from Providence Equity for a sum reportedly close to £600m, giving it a solid foothold in Europe. This f [...]

If the 84th UFI Global Congress in Johannesburg last month made one thing clear about Africa’s appeal to global exhibition organisers, it’s that while appetites may be whetted; work needs to be done to make much of the continent accessible. According to Carol Weaving, Chairperson of Association of African Exhibition Organisers (AAXO) and MD of Reed Exhibitions Africa, delegates were clearly investigating which African countries offered stability and room to grow their shows, the venues to house [...]

Exhibitions are singularly adept at gathering an entire market in one place for a short period of time. People pay good money to be in the mix when this happens, be it as buyer or exhibitor, influencer or influenced. The bigger the event, the greater the percentage of the international market in attendance. The world’s largest motor show, IAA Frankfurt, is one event that truly gathers the global community, car lovers are just one part of the circus that gathers in the industrial Germany city for [...]